


Advent XIV

by Tammany



Series: Assorted Advent Stories, Christmas 2014, All-sorts, some connected. [14]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF!Mycroft, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Gen, Holmes Brothers, Sherlock is a drama queen, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 21:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2747237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And the hits just keep on coming. (smile) </p><p>Sherlock is a drama queen. And there's a reason Mycroft has traditionally "hated Christmas." This time, however, Big Brother is proactive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent XIV

Dinner was delicious, and Mycroft’s friends and family sat around his table chattering like starlings and laughing and telling each other stories and if there were little moments of tooth-grinding tension and words too obviously unsaid—or said and just barely ignored—well, he’d sat through session with the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission—not to mention meetings of the European Bank. Hell, he’d sat through espionage planning commissions while seated directly between the head of Mossad and the head of Hammas’ secret service. Compared to any and all of the above, a simple family holiday was…

Hmmm. Hardly a cake walk. But not one of his nearest and dearest had nuclear armaments and the will to use them. It simplified matters.

The opening of the great hall and the viewing of the tree? Perhaps not all he could have dreamed, but only because he was capable of outsized dreams. He knew that, and factored it into his expectations accordingly. It was a beautiful, big tree, beautifully decorated, and the gifts beneath its branches were already piled so high it was a wonder it wasn’t pushed an extra foot taller. As the evening went on, everyone slipped up to their rooms and brought down their own modest packages and tucked them in among the bounty. Under Mycroft’s stern eye they all hung stockings—he’d found a lunatic variety online, and chosen a different one for each. His own, to everyone’s amusement, was covered in candy-cane striped umbrellas and sprigs of holly.

It should have been perfect.

“It was perfect,” Lestrade said, as they got ready for bed. “Why are you fretting?”

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed. “Instinct. I knew before Putin started slipping into the Ukraine, too.”

“We’ve stuffed the stockings—they’re fine.”

“Yes….”

“You’ve put up six extra fire alarms just in the Great Hall alone.”

“Yes….”

“You’ve got poor Anthea sitting Santa Watch.”

“So? I gave her a glass of egg nog and a plate of biccies.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Mike.”

Which was logical and reasonable and in spite of it he knew something was going to happen. Lestrade tumbled into easy sleep and was fully unconscious by midnight, but Mycroft lay awake, the certainty of disaster prickling at his nape and keeping him from righteous slumber.

He went over the variables.

Again…

Again…

Again…

And, at last, he got up and slid through the dark mansion, his Crombie overcoat thrown on over his pajamas and a pair of Wellies over his feet. He made his way out of the house by way of the back terrace—and scowled.

A single line of footprints tracked the pristine snow, headed for the garage. He sighed. Instead of heading for the garage, he cut sideways to where the drive looped from the front of the mansion back to the garage. No car had yet passed.

He waited, arms crossed.

The temperature had fallen. During the day it had been almost warm, just barely cold enough at the upper elevations to allow the snow to form, just barely cold enough to keep it from thawing as it fell and landed. Now, though, it was cold—hard, brisk cold. The sky above was clear, now; the clouds had passed. The stars shone bright, and the moon, nearly full, shone brighter. Mycroft tipped his head back, and looked, admiring, at the spangled heavens.

If he had been Baby Em, he thought, he would have done as she’d done earlier in the Great Hall, dancing in place and caroling out his delight. So beautiful.

He quirked a crooked smile, and gave in to cliché, thinking “What the hell. It’s Christmas morning…”

At least he was a tenor, he thought, as he reached for the high notes.

_Oh, holy night, the stars are brightly shining;_

_It is the night of the dear savior’s birth._

_Long lay the world, in sin and error pining_

_Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth._

_A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,_

_For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn…._

The rumble of the Range Rover cut him off. He waited for it, arms crossed, standing straight upright in the middle of the drive, glaring into the approaching headlights.

“Bloody hell,” Sherlock growled, rolling down the window and sticking his head out. “Get out of the way, Mike.”

“No,” Mycroft said, calmly. “Take the Rover back. You are not leaving tonight.”

“You can hardly force me to stay,” Sherlock growled. “Or will you trick me like you tricked me and Janine earlier? Nicely played, by the way, even if it’s all to no real effect.”

“I am not going to trick you,” Mycroft said, calmly. “I am going to _stop_ you. If you wish to leave, you may leave. Tomorrow morning. Properly. Telling your friends and family you are going, and driving in daylight, under better conditions. I won’t even worry. Tonight there will be drunken madmen on the roads to interact with your own melodramatic instincts for disaster. Tomorrow you’ll have to work for a catastrophe.”

“I’m leaving now, Mike.” Sherlock gestured broadly, one arm flailing outside the car, indicating the entire Rover. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m in a bloody big automobile.”

“So you are,” Mycroft said, staying as he was.

“So I outmass you,” Sherlock said, and revved the engine, letting the Rover creep forward a few inches.

“And I outgun you,” Mycroft said, drawing the Walther out of his Crombie pocket.

Sherlock barked with annoyed laughter. “Oh, good God. You’re not going to shoot me, Mike.”

“No,” Mycroft said, then steadied his aim and shot the front passenger side tire. The sound cracked out, and was gone.

Sherlock glowered. “Bloody hell. You’ve gone insane.”

Mycroft steadied the gun again, in perfect stance, wrist steadied by the opposing hand, feet set properly. “Do I have to take out the other tyre? Only I’m not sure we’ve got more than one spare. You’d have to drive the Jaguar back home tomorrow—if you can get it around the Rover. Really, you would pick the bloody biggest car in the fleet, wouldn’t you?”

Anthea came crashing out through the French doors onto the terrace exactly as Lestrade, John and Mary stuck their heads out of various windows. Together they shouted a unified chorus of questions. Mycroft didn’t bother turning his head, but he did wave them dismissal, shouting, “It’s nothing. Just Sherlock being a bloody arse. Go back to bed—I’ve got this one.”

They fell silent. Then John called out loudly, “Sherlock? Cut it the fuck out. We can talk about it in the morning.”

Sherlock glowered at Mycroft, and huffed, and shouted back, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

Mary added her own comment. “Yeah? Like when you ditched our wedding reception to mope? Go to bed, Sherlock. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Sherlock shouted up, “It’s nothing. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Fibbing,” she shouted back, and slammed her window shut.

Lestrade said, “Punk, if you ruin Christmas you won’t even get a cold case from me for the next year.” And then he was gone, too.

“Boss?” Anthea called, arms wrapped around herself as she shivered in the cold.

“Go back in,” Mycroft growled. “Get yourself more eggnog.”

“Rather have scotch.”

“There’s a bottle on the bookshelf in the library,” Sherlock shouted back, sounding limp and resigned.

“Thanks,” she called back, and turned away, going back in.

“You’re really going to make a scene, aren’t you?” Sherlock said.

“No. I’ve already made a scene. Or, more precisely, I’ve moved the timing of your scene up a few hours.” He glowered at his brother. “You just can’t let a single Christmas go by without something, can you?”

“It’s not like I plan it,” Sherlock grumbled.

Mycroft stared at him in frank disbelief.

Sherlock scowled back. “All right. The drugged punch I’ll grant you.”

“And the year it was the faked body of the dominatrix in the morgue?”

“Not my fault,” Sherlock grumbled.

“No, of course not. A mere coincidence that the two cleverest criminal minds in Europe staged an apparent death at the time of your ritual desecration of the holidays.”

“Coincidence,” Sherlock scoffed, quite unconvincingly.

“And the explosion you nearly were trapped in the year before last, in Warsaw?”

“It was a good time for a bomb. And, yes, I will admit I timed it a bit tight…”

“You were showing off, Sherlock.”

Sherlock scowled. “It’s what I do,” he snapped. “I’m a show-off.”

“You’re a melodramatic prat who can’t bear letting anything run along quietly without finding some way to draw attention to yourself and your perceived outcast state,” Mycroft said. “Now, get out of the car, slowly, with your luggage in your hand, and we’ll go in. You can leave after everyone’s up tomorrow morning.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and gave the pissy-little-brother glare, but it proved useless. Mycroft merely returned fire with the above-it-all-big-brother yawn. At last the younger man slid from the cab of the Rover with soft duffel in one hand. He walked around the car, examining the neat flat tyre.

“Well-aimed, you,” he said.

Mycroft smirked, put the safety back on, and slipped the Walther back into the pocket of his Crombie.

They walked toward the terrace together, side by side, making paired tracks through the fresh snow.

“I can’t do it,” Sherlock said, softly.

“Do what?”

“Play happy families.”

“Why not? Consider it a form of undercover work.”

Sherlock was silent. When they reached the terrace he said, “You go on in. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“Why do I doubt you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, sighing, as he sat on the stone rail and looked up. “You won. Again.”

“All I want is for you not to stage a melodramatic decampment in the middle of the night, leaving everyone feeling pitiful and abandoned in the morning,” Mycroft whined. “Is that really so much to ask for? All you have to do is say you’ve been called back to town, after all.”

“Yes, but if I stay, morning will come, and Mummy and Father will be so excited, and John and Mary and the Baby will be buried in presents, and you’ll have music everywhere, and Janine…” He paused, then said, resolutely, “Janine will smile at me, and I won’t want to go. Until I can’t stand it any more and start a fight and storm off. Because _I am a drama queen_ , Mike. And Christmas brings out the worst in me. I feel all clumsy and angry and hemmed in and…”

“And I understand entirely,” Mycroft said, softly. “That’s why I chose the estate. It’s easy to hide, here on the estate.”

Sherlock blinked, and said, softly, “Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.” Mycroft looked around, and said, “It’s almost more than I can bear, too, Brother-mine.”

They were both silent.

“How are you and Lestrade doing?” Sherlock said, finally.

“You can’t deduce it?”

“Not without scarring my tender mind. Give me the expurgated version.”

“We’re happy. Further the deponent sayeth not.”

Sherlock nodded, then said, uneasily. “I like her.”

“I know. She likes you.”

“I know.”

They were quiet longer still, both sitting on the rail—Sherlock fully dressed in his suit and his Belstaff coat, with his duffel sitting on the snow at his feet; Mycroft in his pajamas and Crombie with the Wellies flapping around his shins.

“Do you remember the baritone line to ‘Oh, Holy Night,’” Mycroft asked, mildly.

Sherlock glanced over. “You’re not going to make me sing.”

“Of course not,” Mycroft said, primly, staring up at the wide, black sky. “Just wondering.”

Sherlock looked up, too. “Orion,” he said. “The hunter.”

“Rather our constellation, isn’t it?” Mycroft said.

“Rather,” Sherlock replied, smiling—then began to hum, his baritone deep and resonant. When Mcyroft looked sardonically over at him he said, “What? Just proving I still know my way around my own Mind Palace.”

“Of course,” Mycroft said. “How could I have thought otherwise.” But when Sherlock started over he took the upper line, and together they sang in Christmas morning…

_Fall on your knees;_

_Oh, hear the angel voices!_

_Oh, night divine!_

_Oh, night, oh, night divine!_


End file.
